Describing the trip to the nation's Internet Governance Forum in Baku, she said she was in two minds about attending because of the government's "very troubling attitude to freedom".

But she did attend, and in a post about the experience wrote:

"Activists were harassed at the Internet conference. My advisers had their computers hacked. So much for openness."

According to the BBC, a spokesperson for the EC said that the hacks were "some kind of surveillance".

Two Mac laptops owned by Kroes' staff were breached while in their hotel, the spokesperson said.

Security warnings on the machines flagged up the attempts to access the machines.

"What we're going to do is to get the computers forensically analysed to see what if anything was taken out of them," said the spokesman, Ryan Heath.

But Azerbaijan's head of Social and Political Department Ali Hasanov said the statement had "no basis".

"We have given instructions to the relevant agencies, including the hotel administration, where they were staying, to address the issue. Any Interference into their computers is out of the question, no evidence and facts confirming these statements have been revealed."